Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!cbnews!cbema!las
From: cbema!las@cbnews.ATT.COM (cbema!las)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: stuff
Message-ID: <5562@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Apr 89 15:21:27 GMT
References: <1686@wpi.wpi.edu> <3865@mipos3.intel.com> <1777@wpi.wpi.edu>
Reply-To: cbema!las@cbnews.ATT.COM (Larry A. Shurr)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, OH (actually an AGS consultant)
Lines: 53

In article <1777@wpi.wpi.edu> jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) writes:
}In article <3865@mipos3.intel.com> woodstock@hobbes.intel.com (Nate Hess) writes:
}}In article <1686@wpi.wpi.edu>, jhallen@wpi (Joseph H Allen) writes:
}}>vi is 4 times less CPU hungry than emacs is.  No way is all of that due to
}}>EMACS being lispified.  

}}4 times?  Where did you get that number?  I'd be interested in seeing
}}your benchmarks.

}Here's the top of the 'sa' listing from my school's Encore multimax mainframe:

[omitted]

}CPU time per session comparison (biased towards vi since people use emacs
}several times per session by suspending it):
}
}emacs: cpu-secs/sessions = .127
}vi:    cpu-secs/sessions = .0340

}emacs is 3.74 times worse.

}CPU time per real time (biased towards emacs since emacs gets left idle for
}long periods):

}emacs: CPU/REAL = .0154
}vi:    CPU/REAL = .00677

}emacs is 2.27 times worse.

This is hardly a devastating indictment of Emacs.  It's not even as "bad"
as I thought it might be.  I can and do use vi because I must, but 
personally, I like what Emacs has to offer and the fact that it uses more 
resources than vi is neither surprising nor distressing to me.  Let the
computers do the work, that's what they're there for.

Now if Emacs used 50 or 100 times the resources that vi requires, the
efficiency argument could be very important, but I ordinarily do not
care how hard computers have to work (I know, I know, your academic
computing environment is overloaded and unusable, but a difference of
less than one order of magnitude in the use of computer resources 
probably won't give you meaningful relief).  

If your system is overloaded, I am sympathetic - I just don't think 
that "efficiency" is the main point to consider when selecting a utility 
as important as an editor.  If it were, why not use "cat" as proposed
elsewhere in this thread?

regards, Larry
-- 
Signed: Larry A. Shurr (att!cbnews!cbema!las)
Clever signature, Wonderful wit, Outdo the others, Be a big hit! - Burma Shave
(With apologies to the real thing.  The above represents my views only.)
(Please note my mailing address.  Mail sent to me on cbnews doesn't make it.)